Ironically, we may know less about Abraham Vanderpool than we do about his Dutch ancestors. Because Abraham was born in Albany, New York, we are able to forge a solid link between him (and, by extension, the Indiana Vanderpools) and the parent Vanderpool family of New York – and so the Dutch community in that state. Rich information exists about the Vanderpool family and its associated families in New York, extending back to the earliest settlement of New Netherland (as it was called before the English conquest in 1664). Some of what we know comes from several Vanderpool family histories, some from an excellent network of Vanderpool researchers, and some from documentary and scholarly sources, including the New Netherland Project in the New York State Archives.1 Indeed, the Vanderpool line may be not only the lengthiest documented line in my entire family but the best-documented of all these lines as well.
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Because the half-century of Dutch rule in what is now New York State and surrounding areas is not so well known today, it may be useful to profile here the major features of that era as a context for our discussion of the Vanderpool and its related families. What we now know as the Netherlands was long part of the realm of Hapsburg Spain, then Europe's dominant power. As such, Dutch cities captured much of the trade between Europe and the empire Spain was developing. Protestantism took root in the Netherlands by the 1560s, and soon (1568) there was a revolt by a republic proclaimed by the seven northern provinces (including the province named Holland). The result was a long period of fighting, as Spain unsuccessfully tried to repress what it saw as heresy and to regain political control over these provinces. The Netherlands was occupied by Spanish soldiers and officials during a portion of this time. When a twelve-year peace began in 1609, Spain paused to lick its wounds – and the Dutch took full advantage of their opportunities.
The Dutch now entered a golden age of wealth, military prowess, commercial enterprise, cultural splendor, and intellectual life – an age that lasted only a few decades but saw the Netherlands reach its zenith. Their new and capacious ships enabled them to offer such cheaper shipping costs that their domination of trade spread from the North Sea and the Baltic into the Mediterranean, extended to Asia and Africa (where they captured much of the slave trade), and encompassed the globe from the East Indies to the West Indies. The Dutch now served as the middlemen of world trade, developing highly successful economic and military establishments to support their trading network. They were, in short, the world's first maritime power. (The fact that they possessed both the world's largest and most modern army and its first stock exchange illustrates the scope of their control.) Amsterdam now emerged as the economic and financial center of Europe, perhaps of the world. Rapidly increasing capital and wealth enabled the Dutch to have the highest standard of living in Europe.
But the Netherlands had not only the most literate, and probably the most cultured, people in the world – it was the most liberal as well. The Dutch principle of tolerance and their outright defiance of Roman Catholic Spain also attracted to the Netherlands, and to Amsterdam in particular, thousands of religious dissidents from all over Europe: Huguenots, Walloons, Mennonites, and English Pilgrims among them. The Netherlands was by far the country with the greatest freedom of religion in all of Europe, probably in the entire world. Amsterdam grew from about 60,000 in 1609 to 150,000 or more by 1650.
The West India Company was established in 1621 in order to exploit the economic possibilities that came with peace and with Spain's vulnerability. One of those possibilities was the American fur trade. In 1614 the Company built a small fort south of what is now Albany, New York, making that place one of the two oldest, continuously settled European communities in North America. About ten years later the Company planted a year-round trading post and fort, what would evolve into New Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island, which in 1626 the Company "purchased" from the native Lenape tribe. As we shall see later, it populated this small trading post with not only its own employees but also some Walloons and others who were expected to grow food for the Company's employees and soldiers. By 1628 New Amsterdam had about 270 residents living in rough cabins and even cruder forms of shelter; by 1638, there were about 400 persons in about 90 structures.
This was far from a model settlement, though. The fort was dilapidated, many of the farms were vacant, animals roamed freely, fully one quarter of the structures had taprooms in them, and things were hardly as tidy and organized as the Dutch are thought to like them. But then this was not your usual Dutch town, either: it had a rich mixture of (mostly) men and a few women from about twenty countries, from Turkey to Sweden. As the least enticing of the four Dutch zones of development (the others were in Asia, Brazil, and the West Indies), New Amsterdam probably attracted not the best talent but those who did not catch on or succeed in any of the other zones.
Nor was this a true "colony," as we usually think of it, to be cultivated and expanded. Instead, it was a community focused on supporting the fur trade: an entrepôt where the Company traded to the Indians at first European goods and later seawan (belts of long strings of white and purple beads, made from a particular type of shell, that soon became legal tender in New Netherland) for furs. The West India Company did not wish to encourage settlement for its own sake, in fact; those who lived in New Amsterdam either worked directly for the Company (as officials, artisans, or laborers) or supported its work in some way. The Company owned the land, made the rules, and generally ran things.
Over the years, as newcomers trickled in and then, belatedly, were encouraged by the West India Company, there was steady growth outward from Manhattan Island: up the Hudson River, east into Connecticut and onto Long Island, and west to Staten Island and (slightly later) into New Jersey. The entire enterprise was known as New Netherland. Some of the early directors were inept or scoundrels, but under the leadership of Director Petrus Stuyvesant in particular New Amsterdam successfully worked through its various challenges and vicissitudes. Stuyvesant brought order and discipline, and when two major changes were made – the West India Company abandoned its monopoly of the fur trade (1640) and New Amsterdam received the right to have a municipal government (1653) – what had been a rude and somewhat one-dimensional outpost perched on the southern tip of Manhattan Island rapidly attracted traders and entrepreneurs, captured a significant share of the North America's shipping trade, and started to grow into the dynamic and cosmopolitan city that would in time become the world's leading city.
By mid-century, New Netherland – by then a collection of two towns, thirteen villages, two forts, and three somewhat distant trading outposts – had become a prosperous and reasonably well-run Dutch colony. It remained centered on the key trading and mercantile hub of New Amsterdam (often called "the Manhatans"), which controlled trade with the entire region. That city now had perhaps 300 structures and 1,500 of New Netherland's 3,500 inhabitants by the 1650s. (Albany, by contrast, had perhaps one hundred households at its center and another couple of dozen more scattered nearby.) More active recruiting from the 1630s through the 1650s had brought over more families, and when the Company abandoned its trade monopoly, economic development accelerated. At times the city's neat Dutch-style homes, with their gable ends to the street, colored tile decorations, and high stoops, made New Amsterdam resemble a village in the Netherlands itself.
Expansion of English settlements north and south of New Netherland probably doomed it. Eventual war between the trade rivals, England and the Netherlands, meant that New Amsterdam and New Netherland changed hands in 1664, though there was a brief Dutch repossession during 1673-1674. Both city and colony were renamed after the Duke of York, the King's brother (and successor), and the original fort upriver became known as Albany. Soon New York City was growing even more rapidly (by 1680 it had 3,000 residents in more than 400 buildings), and English regulations ensured that it would prosper as a port and commercial center.
Dutch influences remained strong in New York, both city and colony, for years to come, though, and the Dutch community assiduously cultivated its separateness in language, culture, law, religion, and marriage contracts. (Indeed, the "Knickerbocker" influence remains even today.) Outside New York City, many Dutch communities kept their identity and distinctiveness even longer: both the Hudson Valley and New Jersey, for instance, remained strongly (and stubbornly) Dutch in character long after 1700, and Albany was still almost exclusively Dutch when Abraham Vanderpool was born there in 1709.
The settlement in and around what is now Albany has had various names, depending not only on the year but also on the specific jurisdiction being referred to. The West India Company's initial outpost (1614 to 1624) was called Fort Nassau, which was followed by Fort Orange (1624 to about 1675). A separate community called Beverwyck grew up around Fort Orange from 1652 through 1664, when both were combined into the renamed city of Albany we know today. (This excepts the brief period in 1673 and 1674 when the Dutch regained control of New Netherland and introduced Albany's new name, Willemstadt.) Confusingly, though, from about 1648 onwards the inhabitants of what is now Albany customarily referred to their town as "the Fuyck," a play on words based on the fact that the settlement's physical configuration resembled a hoop-net basket – in Dutch, a fuyck. To complicate things further, both Fort Orange and Beverwyck were located on and virtually surrounded by the extensive territory controlled by the patroon (estate owner) Kiliaen van Rensselaer, which was known as Rensselaerswyck. We will get acquainted with van Rensselaer and his domain shortly.2
It is not always possible to sort out the distinctions among these various jurisdictions. Representatives of the West India Company and the patroon often clashed, as the first sought to exercise full political authority within the fort and its environs and the latter attempted to do the same for van Rensselaer's property. Eventually the patroon's authority and powers diminished, especially when Stuyvesant made a determined effort to exert "civil" authority by establishing the town of Beverwyck to encompass the Fuyck and creating a court to exercise that authority. Stuyvesant claimed for Beverwyck all the land adjacent to the fort's walls to a distance of 1,900 feet. More than two dozen traders thus became residents of the new town and could trade freely with the Indians, although Stuyvesant also required these residents to relocate to two new streets – today called Broadway and State Streets. Here were crowded together the unpretentious houses of the traders, each dwelling just large enough to qualify the owner for trading rights and to house his tradeware and furs.
Between 1632 and 1652, then, the same area might be described as either Fort Orange or the Colonie of Rensselaerswyck, depending on whose authority was being recognized; afterwards, the name Beverwyck gradually gained use until the English replaced it with Albany. In any case the entire community of Albany was always fairly small: in 1657 there were probably no more than 500 inhabitants in all, and growth thereafter was slow.
By whatever name, though, life in Albany revolved around the fur trade, and so around the trading cycle. Nearly everyone (illegally at first but gradually more openly) focused on getting rich from the fur trade. They bought trading goods on credit – often borrowing heavily or mortgaging their homes – from wholesalers in "the Manhatans" and used them to purchase furs from the Indians, who arrived (mostly by canoe) beginning in June. Most of the trading was done from May 1 through the summer, although trading season did not officially end until November 1. During this season, the population of Albany swelled with hundreds of Indians, agents from Manhattan Island, and others from even farther away.
At numerous auctions, generally held in taverns, the furs that had been acquired from the Indians for merchandise or seawan often changed hands again as the purchasers used them to pay off their debts and gain credit for their own acquisitions in the Netherlands for the coming year, or perhaps sold them to larger dealers. Thus Albany's role was chiefly that of depot for the arrival of furs, dispatch point for sending the furs to New Amsterdam for transshipment to Europe, and consumer of the goods that flowed back up the river in return. Like New Amsterdam, it was not originally a colony in the classic sense, a mix of farmers and artisans who gradually expanded the colony's territorial grasp, but merely a mercantile outpost that served as a way to tap into the fur trade that came down the Mohawk River.
Much was riding on the success of the trading season: a good or bad year affected everyone's well-being, economic and otherwise. The trading season was also one of disorder and violence in Albany. With natives and traders (not all of them scrupulous) in town, with considerable drinking, gambling, and carousing, and with the economic stakes so high (income from the sale in Europe of a single fifteen-pound beaver pelt could bring the seller enough to feed an adult with bread for three months), there was bound to be trouble during trading season. But trading in furs was in fact a short-lived phenomenon. After rising from about 10,000 pelts a year during the early 1650s to a maximum of 60,000 a year a decade later, the fur trade plateaued and then gradually declined through the 1700s – as did Albany until it could replace this lucrative source of income with other, more prosaic businesses. (Interestingly, since Albany became the military base for English wars against French Canada through the 1700s, it retained a strong European influence long after most American towns had lost this influence.)
It bears remembering that those who went to Fort Nassau and then Fort Orange during the early years, and indeed for a century thereafter, were venturing very far into the unknown. They were many miles up the Hudson River from even the small rather primitive village located on Manhattan Island and nowhere near any other European settlers. For decades only the river provided a precarious travel route back to civilization and safety, such as it was in New Amsterdam. The forts that would become Albany remained throughout the 17th century (our main concern here) a distant outpost, isolated in an impenetrable forest and an often hostile environment.
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Abraham Vanderpool's parents were WYNANT MELGERTSE VAN DER POEL3 and CATHARINA {DE HOOGES}4 VAN DER POEL. Wynant was christened in Albany, New York, on October 14, 1683. It is likely that he was born there sometime earlier that year, but it is possible he was born as early as 1681. Wynant spent the first part of his life in Albany, where in 1720 he was listed on a city census as residing in the first ward. His several properties – evidently including property he had inherited – were located in the area bounded by Maiden Lane, Broadway, Steuben Street, and James Street. Wynant moved to Newark, New Jersey, sometime during the late 1720s and died there on April 4, 1750.5 He was buried in "the old churchyard" in Newark, probably that of the North Dutch Reformed Church on Broad Street between Lombardy and Bridge Streets.6
Catharina was christened on February 14, 1686, in Kingston, Ulster County, New York.7 She may have been born in nearby Hurley, originally called Nieuw Dorp (New Village) by the Dutch but renamed after the English conquest during the 1660s.8 One source states that Catharina was living at Claverack, in Columbia County, New York, at the time of her marriage to Wynant, but there is no confirmation for this statement. The marriage of Wynant and Catharina took place in Kingston, New York, on September 8, 1706.9 Catharina died in Newark, New Jersey, on January 12, 1744; presumably she was buried in the same churchyard where her husband was buried a few years later, but there is no record of this.10
During the summer of 1704, Wynant and his brother Abraham became involved in something of an adventure while they were in New York City. The Castil del Rey, an 18-gun, 18-man privateer commissioned by the West India Company, arrived in the port along with three rich prizes it had won in raiding Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. Soon there was word that a French pirate vessel was lurking off Sandy Hook, hoping to prey on any shipping that emerged from New York's harbor. A volunteer crew sailed in the Castil del Rey to do battle with the French pirate, but then refused to engage it. The captain of the Company's ship returned to port in order to recruit another crew.
This time Wynant and his brother volunteered, surely attracted not only by the promise of shares of any prize money but also by a bounty for volunteering, and on July 29 the Castil del Rey again began to chase the French pirate. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – for Wynant and Abraham, the pirate escaped, the privateer returned to port, and the captain discharged its volunteer crew. Some Vanderpool researchers wonder if Wynant and Abraham remained aboard the Castil del Rey at least for the privateer's next raid into the Caribbean, in late 1704 and 1705. If so, they then luckily parted company with it: on its very next voyage the vessel ran aground near Sandy Hook and the entire crew froze to death.
Wynant's adventure took place as New York City was beginning to establish and build its lucrative trade with the West Indies sugar markets. Numerous young men about Wynant's age signed on to man the many ships that were built in New York to exploit this growing trade. Often these young men would serve as crew members for a few years and then, if they survived, would go on to some other line of work. It is possible that is why Wynant and Abraham were in New York City, and perhaps they were waiting for a ship when the opportunity to chase the French pirate came along. The brothers seem to have had a martial spirit of sorts: in 1715 they were both members of Captain Roseboom's company of troops in Albany.
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Catharina de Hooges was the daughter of JOHANNES DE HOOGES and MARGARET {POST} DE HOOGES, who were married, probably in the Dutch church in Kingston, New York, on December 4, 1675.11 Johannes was born sometime soon after 1650, probably in Fort Orange or Rensselaerswyck because his parents were still living there.12 He died in Hurley, New York, in about 1695.
Information about Margaret contributed to the LDS IGI lists two persons who might be her, but they are in fact probably the same person. One is a Margaret Post born in Nieuw Dorp in about 1660; no parents are listed for her. The other is a Margarita Post christened in the Dutch Reformed Church13 in New Amsterdam on June 6, 1657; she is described as the daughter of Adriaen Post. We cannot be certain that either of these persons is the Margaret Post we are seeking, but a birth year between 1657 and 1660 seems about right for Catharina's mother, and Post researchers generally concur that both references are to the Margaret Post we are seeking. It was not uncommon for children born elsewhere in New Netherland to be taken to New Amsterdam for christening. We have no idea whatsoever when Margaret {Post} de Hooges died.
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A Captain Post appears in the records of New Amsterdam as early as 1660 and as late as 1663; on some occasions he is identified as Adriaaen Post.14 This must be the same Adriaen Crynen15 Post who was a captain in the West India Company's own private army. The Post family apparently originated in The Hague, and Adriaen Post was probably born there about 1628. His wife's name was Clara {Moockers} Post; she was born in The Hague about 1632. Based on the evidence we have, therefore, it seems likely that the parents of Margaret {Post} de Hooges were ADRIAEN CRYNEN POST and CLARA {MOOCKERS} POST, but we would welcome further evidence this is so.
Adriaen and his family have quite an interesting history. They lived in Recife, Brazil, another of the Company's outposts until it was lost to the Portuguese in 1654. The Posts went to Brazil sometime before June 1649, when they are mentioned in a baptismal record there.16 The Dutch had captured a large section of northeast Brazil from Portugal during the 1630s, largely to gain control over sources of sugar and slaves. After a few years of peace a growing insurgency after 1645 gradually drove the Dutch back to the city of Recife, where the Dutch had built Mauristaad next to the historic city, until a Portuguese fleet forced the Dutch to surrender in 1654. Adriaen Post likely was involved in campaigns against the insurgents during the late 1640s. He and his family must have left Recife for home sometime in late 1649, though, for by 1650 they had turned right around and were headed westward across the Atlantic Ocean yet again. On June 30, 1650, they sailed aboard the ship New Netherland Fortune for the colony after which it was named. Post had now been hired as the agent for Baron Hendrick van der Capellen toe Reyssel, who was patroon of a settlement on land that makes up about one-third of Staten Island. The Posts arrived on December 19, 1650, though not without some adventure and delay: because of a dispute between Dutch patroons, the New Netherland Fortune and its cargo were confiscated and held for a time at an island (now known as Dutch Island) in Rhode Island. 17
Between 1651 and 1655, Adriaen Post and his family probably were living on Staten Island; we know he was there by the latter year. At first he was successful, building the colony from twenty to about one hundred settlers and cultivating friendly relations with the Indians. During the fall of 1655, though, at the same time Director Stuyvesant was off conquering the tiny Swedish settlements along the Delaware River (New Sweden), New Netherland experienced what is called the Peach War – possibly a retaliation against the Dutch for Stuyvesant's offensive against the Swedes, with whom the Indians had a close trading relationship. Northern Indians raiding the local Canarsie tribe stopped on Manhattan Island for food, and a Dutch resident killed one of them, a woman, who was taking peaches from an orchard. Angry Indians terrorized New Amsterdam, the militia was called out, and several persons on both sides were killed. Over the next month or so, Indian attacks resulted in considerable destruction throughout New Netherland. Many houses in New Amsterdam and elsewhere were burned, dozens more people died, and the Indians took one hundred or more persons captive.
The entire Post family (including five children but not Margaret, who had not yet been born in 1655) was among the captives, having been seized on Staten Island on September 15 by the Hackensack Indians and held for ransom. The Indians, based on Paulus Hook, freed Adriaen Post – someone they felt they could trust – on October 12 so that he could negotiate with Stuyvesant and his council the terms of a general release of all sixty or so remaining prisoners. Stuyvesant made Post his official negotiator and even personally fashioned a special leather badge for him to wear as the sign of his office. Post shuttled back and forth between the Indians and the Dutch, working out arrangements to end the dispute. It was many months before all the captives were released in exchange for Dutch guns, powder, lead, blankets, and seawan. Among those held until the end were the other members of the Post family.
After their release in late autumn the Post family had to survive the winter, virtually alone on Staten Island, without adequate shelter and food. They and a few soldiers took shelter in ruined buildings and lived off stray cattle. Several of the children evidently died during this winter of hardship, but Captain Post, diligent in protecting his patroon's interests, refused to accept Stuyvesant's recommendation that he and his family abandon the settlement and take refuge on Manhattan Island. Adriaen Post fell ill by the spring of 1656 and his wife had to step forward and act in his place. She petitioned for relief from the lawsuits that had begun to appear (suits based on the patroon's growing debts but filed against Post as Van der Capellen's agent), for a garrison of soldiers, and for someone to fulfill her husband's duties.
Post eventually recovered, as did the little settlement on Staten Island, and in 1657 or so Margaret was born. The heirs of the patroon and the West India Company then became embroiled in a dispute that crippled the colony on Staten Island. Post was still upholding his employer's interests (and being sued by the patroon's creditors) as late as 1660, but by 1662 he seems to have moved to Kingston, New York, and then in 1663 to Bergen, New Jersey (now Jersey City). He patented 55 acres, a lot near the northwest gate of Bergen, and a garden plot in the same area on May 12, 1668. Adriaen Post's homestead on the shore of New York Bay was in the family for many years.18
Post appears frequently in the records in Bergen, petitioning for a minister and against the fencing of common lands for example, but he also held some important official positions. In 1663 he became a magistrate and in 1665 (despite his appellation as " Captain," reflecting his previous military career) an ensign;19 in 1675 he was made a lieutenant in the Bergen Burgher Guard, or militia. At the request of Governor Philip Carteret, in May of 1666 Post acted as interpreter in some negotiations with the Indians. In May of 1671, he served on a jury in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth, New Jersey). He was also chosen to be a constable and elected a member of the New Jersey General Assembly in 1673, one of two representing Bergen, and in that same year was appointed the first prison-keeper in East Jersey. Lastly, in August 1674 Post was made schepen (equivalent to city councilman) in Bergen.20
Adriaen Post died a few days before February 18, 1677, the date he is known to have been buried – probably in a cemetery across the street from the Dutch church in Bergen. Post may have been visiting his son in Bergen at the time, if he did not actually live there himself. Post's will was recorded on April 7, 1677. We do not know when Adriaen's wife Clara died, but she was no longer living when their daughter's wedding to Johannes de Hooges was announced in November of 1675.21 Unfortunately, we know nothing more for certain about the Post and Moockers lines.22
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We shift now to the family of Johannes de Hooges, Margaret's husband. He himself figures in two incidents that have survived time. Johannes had grown up in Hurley, New York, where his mother and stepfather, Roelofs Swartwout, had moved in 1657. Here Johannes seemingly became involved in Swartwout's business affairs, including some mining ventures, but we know very little more about him. At one point Johannes and others signed a pledge in Hurley promising to volunteer their "bodies and lives" in a war that had just begun with France. Later, on January 3, 1671, Swartwout and young Johannes, in the company of some other men, were returning from Marbletown on an old mine road when, not far from Hurley, they encountered four unfamiliar "southern" Indians at a cook fire. Since he understood the southern dialect, Johannes questioned the Indians, after which the Dutch hurried back to Kingston to report the possibility of imminent Indian raids on the settlements.
Johannes was the son of ANTHONY DE HOOGES, one of the leading officials of New Netherland, and EVA ALBERTSE23 {BRADT} DE HOOGES.24 Anthony was born in Noord, a section of Amsterdam, on December 14, 1620. He died in Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck on or about October 11, 1655. We do not have an exact date of birth for Eva, but as she was baptized in the Lutheran Church in Amsterdam25 on January 9, 1633, it is likely that she was born very late in 1632 or early in the new year. She died, probably in Hurley, New York, as early as 1689 but no later than the first part of 1691 because her second husband, Roelofs Swartwout, married again in late 1691. Eva was probably buried in Hurley.
Anthony and Eva were married, quite probably in Rensselaerswyck, sometime in October of 1647, because there is a record of payment dated October 29, 1647, for services performed at their wedding.26 (The West India Company paid the expenses of the wedding.) It is worth observing that Eva seems to have been just 14 or 15 years of age when she was wed to a man twice her age. Following Anthony's premature death, Eva mortgaged the couple's house and lot in order to create a trust fund for the five children she and Antony had produced. Johannes de Hooges received his share of the proceeds shortly before his marriage to Margaret {Post} de Hooges in 1675.
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Johannes de Hooges's mother Eva was the daughter of ALBERT ANDRIESSEN BRADT27 and his first wife, ANNETIE BARENTSE {VAN ROTMERS} BRADT. Both Albert and Annetie were born about 1607. Annetie died in 1661 – probably fairly early in the year, since the official records in February of that year contain a reference to her funeral pall. She evidently died in Fort Orange or Rensselaerswyck, but we have no information about where she is buried. Annetie's estate was settled on June 6, 1662. Albert died on June 7, 1686. Presumably he is buried in the Lutheran burying ground in Albany.28
This couple recorded their marriage intentions at the Oudekerk (Old Church) in Amsterdam29 on March 27, 1632, and were married there on April 11, 1632 (which was Easter in that year). The Oudekerk was a Reformed church, and it is not clear why the couple – both Lutherans – were married there. It may be that the Lutheran minister was unavailable. Perhaps the couple did not wish to go through a separate civil ceremony at city hall, which would have been the case had they married outside the official, Reformed, faith. Or it may simply be that the Lutheran church, then being constructed, was unsuitable for marriages at this time. We do know that the Bradts later had two children baptized in that Lutheran church and that Albert remained a practicing Lutheran himself (though his children did not), so evidently it was a logistical problem of some sort that caused them to be married in the Oudekerk.30
The Van Rotmers31 family apparently originated on the North Sea coast at the mouth of the Elbe River, just east of Cuxhaven in what is now the German state of Niedersachsen. They are associated with two towns that are called Altenbruch and Otterndorf in German and Oudebroek and Aterendorp in Dutch; we do not know in which of them Annetie was born. From her patronymic, we can tell that her father was named BARENT VAN ROTMERS. Her mother's name was GEESJE32 Barens, who is thought to have been born about 1591.
Annetie's father Barent seems to have died before 1632, as he is never mentioned in the surviving records. At that time her mother, Geesje, was living on Schaepensteegje (Sheep Alley), which is near Rembrandtplein in Amsterdam.33 During the fall of 1640, Geesje Van Rotmers immigrated to New Netherland aboard a ship called den Wagterhondt (The Waterhound). At some point – Bradt family researchers think before she immigrated – she married a gunner at Fort Orange named Pieter Jacobsz van Rynsburch.34 She is thought to have died before April of 1658 and definitely was deceased by 1663.
We turn now to Eva's father, Albert Bradt. We know quite a bit about this colorful character, thanks in part to his conspicuous presence in New Netherland's early history and in part to assiduous research by members of a very active Bradt family association. In fact, at least three books have already been published profiling the life and times of this man. Born about 1607, Bradt grew up in Fredrikstad, Norway, a port known for its fishing that was also the leading saw milling town in Norway. Fredrikstad, whose Old Town has an excellently preserved 17th-century appearance, is located on what is today called the Glåma River. Albert was probably baptized in the Gamle Kirken (Old Church) in Glemmen, a section of Fredrikstad; this Lutheran church, whose oldest portion probably predates 1200, still stands.
Bradt went to the Netherlands as a young man, probably one of the Norwegians who took to the sea as a way of finding opportunity – and because they were uncomfortable in Danish-run Norway. (Many of those who "escaped" were regarded by those who remained as obstinate, rebellious, and irascible – terms that pretty well sum up Albert himself, as we shall observe.) Many of these young Norwegians signed on with the Dutch, the dominant maritime nation at the time. The Dutch were also the principal consumers of Scandinavian lumber for their growing fleet of ships, since lumber was scarce in the Netherlands itself. After a stint as a sailor in the Dutch merchant marine, Albert by 1632 had become a tobacco "planter," which means he was probably managing a tobacco plantation in the Netherlands. At the time of his marriage to Annetie he was living on the Romboutsteegh (Rombout Alley) in Amsterdam.35
On August 26, 1636, Bradt, then 29 years old, and two older men visited the buildings at 277 Keisersgracht in Amsterdam, where Kiliaen van Rensselaer maintained his combined home, office, and warehouse. There, in accordance with van Rensselaer's custom, they signed a detailed contract committing the three to operate a sawmill near Fort Orange for a period of seven years; Bradt also agreed to raise tobacco. Van Rensselaer was a wealthy Amsterdam investor and diamond and pearl merchant who (together with several partners who never had anything more than a minor economic stake in the colony) had recently become a patroon with extensive property in New Netherland.
The West India Company had finally decided to grant large estates to individuals who would at their own expense settle people on these estates – people who, a patroon hoped, would make such an investor wealthy from his share of the bounty: he would receive all the fishing, hunting, and milling rights, along with a tenth of all harvests. A patroon also had civil and criminal jurisdiction and could appoint his own magistrates. In short, he would be running a private fiefdom within New Netherland – although van Rensselaer never viewed his property as anything other than an economic investment. Van Rensselaer did the most to develop his extensive patroonship in New Netherland, and the sawmill Albert contracted to run was a key element in van Rensselaer's plan to create a money-making agricultural enterprise. (In the end, van Rensselaer was in fact the only successful patroon of the dozen or so individuals who obtained patents, and even his modest economic success fell far short of his expectations: few if any of the artisans or farmers he sent could make a living, and nearly all of them were drawn irresistibly to the fur trade instead.)
At 2:00 p.m. on September 25, 1636, Bradt and his family (Annetie and two children, one of them Eva) departed Amsterdam aboard his patroon's new ship, the Rensselaerswyck. Their first destination, which required a difficult trip along a narrow passage through shallow waters and sandbanks in the Zuider Zee,36 was a port on the Dutch barrier island of the Texel. They left that island on October 8.37 What lay ahead for the nearly forty passengers and the crew of fourteen or fifteen was an extremely long and arduous passage. Storms kept the Rensselaerswyck from following the routes vessels crossing the Atlantic Ocean typically took (south as far as the coast of Morocco and then west to the Azores and across the open ocean), and on November 16 – after more than a month at sea in the Bay of Biscay – the captain was forced by dwindling provisions and damage to his ship's stern to put in at the small English port of Ilfracombe, located on the north coast of Devon near Exmoor in western England. During this fruitless period (on November 2), Albert and Annetie had born to them their third child, a boy they named Storm.38
The ship did not sail again until January 9, 1637, some six weeks later. (Meanwhile, Storm was baptized and one of the passengers killed another in an English tavern.) After some further difficulties, including a narrow escape from privateers, the Rensselaerswyck made landfall at Cape Charles, Virginia. It then followed the coastline northward and arrived in New Amsterdam on March 4, 1637. Ice in the Hudson River kept the ship at its dock until March 26, but finally the Rensselaerswyck and its passengers sailed up the river and arrived in Fort Orange at 3:00 am on April 7 – six and one-half months after leaving the Netherlands.
The families involved in the sawmill lived together in a house on what was originally called Tawasentha Creek, near the site of the first, short-lived Dutch fort (Fort Nassau), some two miles south of Fort Orange. Albert was soon helping to build the sawmill nearby and managing a tobacco farm. In time the creek (in Dutch, a kill) on which Bradt lived and worked would come to be named after Albert himself: as the Normanskill, it reflected the fact that he was often called by the nickname de Norman ("the Norwegian"). The creek is still known by that name today.39 Later, Bradt and his family lived in a rough home in Greenbush (now known as Rensselaer) on the east bank of the Hudson River, and he also owned a house (possibly rented for income) within the confines of Fort Orange itself.
Almost immediately, Bradt had difficulty getting along with the one of his two partners who had come to New Netherland with him, Pieter Cornelissen, and Bradt seems to have precipitated an upheaval in the partnership.40 By March 25, 1638, when Bradt moved his family to another house, the partners had separated and Bradt was raising tobacco full time. No doubt he – like nearly everyone else in New Netherland – was also engaged in the lucrative fur trade, illegal until the West India Company ended its monopoly of the trade in 1639; Albert also raised cattle, grew apples, fished, dealt in real estate (he rented out the house in the fort that he owned), and engaged in trade with the Indians. His brother, Arent, evidently assisted by running the tobacco business while Albert dabbled in these other things. Albert also smuggled a bit and frequently battled with officials of both the patroon41 and the West India Company, often refusing to pay the fines levied on him when he stepped too far out of line. He and van Rensselaer had a somewhat rocky relationship. The latter – something of a micromanager in today's terms – was in his correspondence with Albert frequently critical of Bradt's actions, attitude, financial accounts, and tobacco. (On the other hand, Bradt's job was to make money for the patroon, and van Rensselaer sent similar long and rather petulant letters of instruction to all of his colonists, none of whom submitted to him what he regarded as satisfactory reports and accounts.) Judging from the correspondence, Albert responded to the patroon's occasional scolding by being even more evasive and obstinate.
In 1646 Bradt took over as manager of the two sawmills on the Normanskill that van Rensselaer had hired him to co-manage ten years before, and over the next couple of decades he prospered supplying lumber to the growing population of Fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck – this in spite of the area's short milling season, cut short by low water during the summer and ice during the winter. The fact that there were few competitors certainly helped. (One of them, as we shall see, was Wynant van der Poel.) The marriage of his daughter, Eva, to one of the leading figures of the colony, Anthony de Hooges, in 1647 demonstrated that the Bradt family had achieved a fairly high level of prosperity and position.42 Albert's mill site was described in 1651 as a powerful waterfall with two large sawmills and three dwellings on it.
Bradt also expanded his activities in the fur trade, using as a partner in New Amsterdam the man with whom he had come to New Netherland but then had quarreled with, Pieter Cornelissen. On August 29, 1651, Bradt bought a warehouse and house across from the fort in New Amsterdam,43 subsequently converting the house into an office from which he could conduct his business, and also owned about 50 acres in the Smith's Vly area of New Amsterdam. He may have owned more property in both New Amsterdam and Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck that we do not know about. Meanwhile, Albert's contract with the patroon had expired in 1643, but he continued as before to operate the sawmills on Normanskill. Van Rensselaer's heirs – Kiliaen himself died in 1643 – sought to collect some rent from Bradt for the period from 1652 to 1672, but no agreement could be reached, largely because of Albert's intransigence. (Albert apparently wore the later patroons down: by the 1670s his rent payment was reduced to a token few apples a year, and at that rate it would have taken 198 years for Bradt to pay off what the patroons claimed he owed to them.)
Bradt had direct business ties with firms in the Netherlands. In addition, he was among the relatively few residents of Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck – perhaps 15% – who owned property in New Amsterdam, and he was also was among the few – maybe as many as one-quarter – who owned his own yacht (then the name of an ordinary sailing vessel) that he used for hauling cargo north and south on the river. A former sailor, it was natural for him to operate his own ship, probably loaded with tobacco much of the time, which he could sail from his farm right to his New Amsterdam warehouse via a slip leading in from the Hudson River. But the fact that he could afford to own and operate such a vessel serves to confirm how he was prospering through these years after his departure from the service of van Rensselaer.
Albert may have divided his time between Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck and New Amsterdam, but he was legally a resident of what was increasingly called Beverwyck as late as 1660. He and his commercial disputes continue to appear in the court records of New Amsterdam, but (as the writer of one book points out) Bradt seems to have behaved himself better during his days as a merchant – at least there were fewer complaints about him. After Cornelissen's death in 1658, Bradt bought a mill creek on the East River that had belonged to his former partner, sold a sloop he and a partner owned, and rented out his business office next to the fort.44 He also showed a generous side: he agreed that all of Cornelissen's estate should go to his former partner's children and assumed any debts stemming from their joint business. Beginning about a year and a half after the death of his wife Annetie in early 1661, however, Bradt seems to have disengaged from business in New Amsterdam: he signed the house there over to his eight children (June 3, 1662), sold the nearby warehouse (1664), and turned his attention thereafter to his sawmills, orchards, farms, and ironworks on the Normanskill.
We see another dimension of Albert Bradt when we look beyond his business dealings. He was evidently trusted by the Indians friendly to the Dutch, for in September of 1650 a Tapaen Indian came to his home to report that the Maquas tribe was trying to organize an attack on Fort Orange during the coming winter. Bradt reported the conversation to the officials, including Anthony de Hooges. Defensive precautions were taken and there was no attack.
In addition, for many years Albert was an active lay leader and elder in the Lutheran Church. As such he risked violating the religious laws, since the Dutch had an established church that was supported by civil law and mandatory payments from all. Despite their general tolerance of those with other views, the Dutch allowed worship outside the established church only if the other sects did not proselytize, advertise themselves, or ask the state to support their ministers – as it did those of the Dutch Reformed Church. The agents of the West India Company strictly applied this policy in New Netherland.
During the late 1640s, though, the Lutherans in New Netherland began to press for their own minister and church, since when children were baptized at the Reformed Church both parents had to attend the ceremony and profess their acceptance of the dogma of the Reformed Church. This was galling to Lutherans like Albert Bradt. In 1649 and again three times during the next decade, the Lutherans in Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck sent delegations to Amsterdam in search of a pastor. Some Lutherans were jailed when they started their own religious meetings.
On January 30, 1656, sixteen Lutherans in Fort Orange held a public worship service, not only on Sunday morning but directly across the street from the Dutch Reformed Church. Afterwards, there was some sort of altercation near the church involving the Lutherans. Albert Bradt was the elder for this worship service, and for his role he was fined a substantial sum.45 He was also fined by authorities in New Amsterdam for organizing and leading Lutheran services there. A few years later the West India Company relaxed its attitude somewhat, and when the English took control of New Netherland in 1664 the Lutherans were granted the right of public worship. Their church was not built until 1678, but when it was, Bradt was one of several men who bought the land on which the church was to be built.46
Albert, left with four sons (ages 25 to 11 years) after Annetie died in early 1661, married again about 1664.47 His second wife was Pieterje Jans Jansen, the widow of one of his two original partners in the patroon's sawmill, Claes Jansen de Ruyter van Naerden. Pieterje died in New York City in January of 1667, and the court minutes for New Amsterdam show Bradt – noted as living in Albania, the new English name for Beverwyck – among the creditors of her estate.
In 1668 or 1669, Bradt was married a third time, to Geertruyt Pieterse {Coeymans} Vosburgh; she was the widow of a victim of an Indian attack at Esopus, Abraham Pieterse Vosburgh. This was not a happy union, however. By January 1670 Bradt had ceased giving support to his wife – herself a rather contentious person – and perhaps had left her. On March 29 of that year, Bradt asked for a written decree of separation and annulment. Following months of acrimony and wrangling, Governor Francis Lovelace on October 24, 1670, finalized a decree for separation ("because strife and difference hath arisen between them") – but not for annulment. Albert was directed to give his wife about a bushel of apples (mixed summer and winter!) each year. Predictably, perhaps, Albert fell in arrears and his wife refused to accept the apples anyhow. Finally she moved away to Kinderhook, New York.48
Bradt retired from nearly all of his remaining business activities in 1672, fourteen years before he died, but apparently kept his farm and orchard on the Normanskill. He lived there by himself, no doubt rather lonely, until he moved to his son Dirck's house49 in Albany in 1685. According to Albany historians, he sometimes lived on Fox's Kill, a ravine just outside the north gate of the stockade surrounding the town.50
Throughout his life Albert had had a reputation for a violent temper, for inflicting cruelty on members of his family, and for being quarrelsome in his relationships with others. Van Rensselaer described him as "a strange character." At the same time, Bradt was a respected businessman and church leader. Toward the very end of his life, though, Bradt's worsening behavior caused acute concern within his family and the community. On different occasions he was accused of throwing a knife at a neighbor, behaving "improperly" before young people, destroying a neighbor's property, throwing fire around his son's house, and threatening to burn his son.51 He was nasty even to a son-in-law who was bending over backwards to help him out. The court ordered Albert's family to confine him or move him out of Albany. We can only guess whether he had some illness – possibly what we today know as Alzheimer's Disease – or was just increasingly irascible in his old age.
We know almost nothing about Albert Bradt's line in Norway, except – from his patronymic – that his father's name was ANDERS BRADT. This man was probably born during the 1570s. Albert's mother was very likely named EVA, since both Albert and his brother Arent named their first daughters Eva. The name Bradt, which can mean "steep" in Norwegian, may have been the name or description of a farm in Norway where the family originated. Thus the trail of Eva {Bradt} de Hooges and her line would seem to end somewhere on a hillside in rural Norway.
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We take up next the line of Eva's husband, Anthony de Hooges. He is also someone about whom we know quite a bit, in his case because he was at least for awhile a leading figure in New Netherland's early history. Anthony worked for a time (we do not know how long) in Amsterdam for the merchant-patroon van Rensselaer, who in mid-1641 sent him to Rensselaerswyck. His duties were to be an assistant bookkeeper and aide to Arent van Curler, the agent in charge of the patroon's enterprise and the town clerk. De Hooges departed from Amsterdam on July 23 and from the Texel on the 30th. He sailed aboard a ship named Den Coninck David (King David), one of thirty-five or so vessels to leave that port at that time.52 This ship, a 200-ton Dutch "flyboat" with a keel of 60 feet, had a crew of 25 and 14 guns. The detailed journal that Anthony kept during the voyage is considered a major source of information about the nature of travel between the Netherlands and its outpost in North America.53
After a stop in Plymouth, England, from August 19 through 30, de Hooges's ship and five others began their ocean crossing. The little fleet passed the Madeira Islands on September 16 and 17 and the Canary Islands on September 19 and 20. Now alone, except for a small galley, Den Coninck David was running short of fresh water. When the crew and the passengers "began to look at each other," as de Hooges put it, they unanimously decided (on October 4) to detour to the West Indies to replenish their water supply. The ship reached the Leeward Islands on October 16 and anchored at St. Christopher two days later. Leaving the West Indies behind on October 23, Den Coninck David headed for New Amsterdam. Contrary winds dogged the vessel, as they had for much of the voyage. After running aground briefly at Sandy Hook, de Hooges's ship finally anchored in the East River off Manhattan Island on November 29, 1641. This was too late in the year to navigate the ice-filled Hudson River, so de Hooges spent the winter in New Amsterdam54 and did not reach his new home in Rensselaerswyck until April 10, 1642; he had been in transit for eight and one-half months.
In Rensselaerswyck, de Hooges took over the operational details of running the upriver outpost, which had about 100 residents, from the offices in the tiny community named Greenbos that van Rensselaer had insisted on placing on the unprotected east shore of the Hudson River in a futile effort to keep his colonists as far as possible from the fur trade centered at Fort Orange. (When the patroon died in 1643, the offices were moved to the west shore.) Despite the fact that he was only in his early twenties, which sometimes made de Hooges feel that the residents of Rensselaerswyck did not respect him, Anthony is regarded as having been a quick learner and an able and effective manager; the patroon himself described him as "an upright young man." We know that de Hooges owned an extensive library of books on law, theology, philosophy, and mathematics, so he may ave had a good education in the Netherlands. When van Rensselaer was between agents, from October 1644 to March 1648, de Hooges handled the entire business management of the colony virtually alone, a considerable accomplishment for such a young man. (Once Brant van Slichtenhorst arrived to be the new agent, de Hooges served as the colony's secretary.)
De Hooges's name appears in many of the colony's records that the New Netherland Project has translated, as well as in the court minutes of Fort Orange; in fact, those minutes are frequently in his handwriting.55 The New York State Archives holds a number of manuscripts related to de Hooges, including memoranda, promissory notes, deeds, and the like. Records like these relate a number of disputes in which Anthony de Hooges was involved.56 He experienced several verbal and physical assaults, so he must have been a controversial character, or at least someone in a controversial position, although one of the persons who attacked him twice with a knife was evidently a troublemaker.
Soon after de Hooges arrived in New Netherland, his sweetheart back in Amsterdam married another man, leading van Rensselaer to warn him against both drink and women in terms that makes one suspect that de Hooges may have sampled both to excess.57 Although the patroon viewed him with almost fatherly eyes, he did not treat Anthony particularly well and failed even to pay him for a couple of years. In general, though, de Hooges had a good position with a handsome salary and amenities (including a free house, free beer, and income from fees). He served as a deacon of the Dutch Reformed Church and was sometimes asked to console the bereaved or to represent in court those who needed assistance. Perhaps his most lasting contribution, however, is a true oddity: a promontory on the east shore of the Hudson River, above where the east end of the Bear Mountain Bridge connects to the shore, is nicknamed "Anthony's Nose" – supposedly after de Hooges's own rather prominent nose.58
So it was that in a gesture of good will the West India Company paid for Anthony and Eva's wedding in October of 1647. The couple lived at first in the colony's warehouse, but in 1648 that building was converted into the community's first church and they had to live elsewhere. On April 23, 1652, de Hooges obtained a lot "near the bridge" on the south side of the Fuyck or Rutten Kill (also known as the Fuyck or First Kill) in the new village of Beverwyck. This description more or less matches that of the property de Hooges owned at the corner of Green Street and Beaver Street, just south of State Street in downtown Albany, since the creek flowed near that intersection on its way to emptying into the Hudson River at the foot of Hudson Avenue.59 Still not yet 35 years old, Anthony de Hooges died in Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck on October 11, 1655,60 leaving Eva with several small children. We do not know the cause of his early death. It was probably a disease of some type, but the fact that Anthony had been physically attacked several times during his short career as the patroon's manager may have been a contributing factor.
About two years later, on August 13, 1657, de Hooges's widow Eva entered into a marriage contract with a man named Roelofs Swartwout, who had arrived in New Netherlands in 1652 and had come to Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck a few years later. Well-educated and ambitious, Swartwout had dabbled in various projects there before marrying the widow of de Hooges, a woman who was at least several years older than himself. This marriage brought him social standing and connections, but also the debts that de Hooges had left behind with his premature death. For his own part, Swartwout was all too willing to take on more debt, which often left him heavily mortgaged, chronically overextended, and even in hardship – especially with the large family he and Eva produced.
A year or two after their marriage, the couple relocated to "the Esopus," as the Dutch community along Esopus Creek south of Fort Orange/Rensselaerswyck was called.61 This area was a new frontier for the Dutch, who had only recently established a town on the abutment overlooking the newly opened farmlands extending to the west. This town, first called Wiltwyck (Wild Woods), was later renamed Kingston. The rich and easily cultivated land in the vicinity of Wiltwyck appealed to the Dutch, including Stuyvesant, as a potential source of provisions for the town at the mouth of the Hudson. Swartwout and his new wife seem to have maintained homes in both Beverwyck and the Esopus for awhile. The former was presumably the de Hooges house that would have become Eva's by inheritance, although just before her marriage Eva may have been living nearby at the corner of Beaver Street and Broadway.62
The house in Beverwyck was chiefly used for business purposes or rented out and was later sold off with other property Anthony had owned when Swartwout needed money. In any case, the younger de Hooges children, including Johannes (about 3 to 7 years of age when his mother married Swartwout), lived primarily at the Esopus after about 1659 and then raised their own families there. Eva and her second husband are listed among the celebrants at the first communion at the new church at Wiltwyck on December 26, 1660. Swartwout bought a village lot in Wiltwyck in 1662, then a lot outside the palisade that the town erected for protection on its nicely elevated but isolated site.63
Swartwout had become the local schout (similar to sheriff in the English system) through interesting circumstances. He went to Amsterdam in 1660 and personally persuaded the West India Company to appoint him, but Peter Stuyvesant objected on the grounds that Swartwout was immature and inexperienced. Swartwout used his influence, though, and the Company overruled Stuyvesant in 1661. (A schout, similar to the English sheriff, maintained order, prosecuted certain crimes, and with several elected representatives helped to set policy.) His career as schout had its ups and downs, as he lost his office for a time and struggled economically, but later he regained some of his authority. Fortunately, no one in the Swartwout family was killed, wounded, or taken prisoner during the second Indian raids on the settlements along Esopus Creek and at Nieuw Dorp (later called Hurley) on June 7, 1663. This time, Swartwout played a role in organizing the defense. 64
Six years later, in 1669, Swartwout and his family moved a few miles west to Nieuw Dorp, where they lived in the village itself and owned two lots outside of it. The Swartwout's continued to work their fertile farmland (eventually about 40 acres) on the north side of Esopus Creek, probably producing hops, rice, and grains like the other Dutch farmers in the area.65 In addition, Swartwout himself maintained his involvement in local politics. By now Johannes de Hooges might well have been living on his own, but he was not married until 1675 – to a woman, Margaret {Post} de Hooges – who was born in Nieuw Dorp. 66
Swartwout played a small role in a big event in New York's early history, and Johannes de Hooges may have had a cameo role in the same event. Roelofs Swartwout was an enthusiastic adherent of Jacob Leisler, a militia captain who led what is sometimes termed a "rebellion" during the late 1680s. Civil government in New York unraveled in 1688 in the wake of the Glorious Revolution in England, when William and Mary became the new monarchs and colonial administration was far from people's minds. With a vacuum in the colony's leadership, Leisler stepped forward to maintain order or usurp the crown's power, depending on one's perspective. Leisler primarily attracted support from those who were not members of the commercial, political, and social establishment, and he was also strongly anti-Catholic.
After about two years with Leisler in command, a new governor arrived and restored royal authority. Leisler and a lieutenant were executed for treason, and Leisler's supporters came under suspicion. Because Swartwout had been elected to the General Assembly as a Leisler supporter, he too was arrested and sentenced to death, but his sentence was not carried out and he was pardoned in 1699. Johannes de Hooges was commissioned a captain by Leisler on December 26, 1689, and it is logical to think that he too was a Leisler supporter – all the more in view of Johannes's close relationship and business partnerships with his rather ambitious stepfather. There is no record of Johannes's being accused or arrested, however.67
We can carry the de Hooges line back a couple of generations in Europe. Anthony's parents were JOHANNES DE HOOGES and MARIA {TIJRON} DE HOOGES, who were married on March 21, 1608. The evidence suggests that Johannes was not only a shareholder in the West India Company but its bookkeeper as well, which would help to explain how his son Anthony was able to get a similar post in New Netherland. Johannes was born in the lace-making city of Mechelen, Belgium, probably during the 1590s. His parents were JAN DE HOOGES and CATARINA {DE DRAIJERE} DE HOOGES.
Maria was born in Antwerp, Belgium, perhaps in about 1599-1600; her parents were ANTONI TYRON and CATHARINA {KARNEELS} TYRON. We know nothing more about either of these two lines, but according to the Dutch Genealogical Bureau their names indicate that they too most likely came from Belgium. One source has estimated that Antoni was born in 1570 and that Catharina was born in 1575, but these are only estimates. It was presumably from Antoni Tyron that Anthony de Hooges derived his (for the Dutch) rather unusual given name, which he himself often spelled Antonio. The name suggests a possible link between the Tyron/de Hooges family and the Spanish soldiers and officials who occupied the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands alike). These soldiers and officials were there in plenty of time – as early as 1555 – to have intermarried with the Tyrons before Antoni was born, and some of these men remained in the Low Countries instead of returning to Spain. It seems possible, therefore, that Anthony de Hooges had some Spanish blood, but there is no documentary evidence that this is the case.
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rev. 3/9/10
Notes
1This project is seeking to translate and make available all the extant records (written in Dutch, of course) relating to New Netherland. Some of them were damaged or destroyed in a fire in the state capitol building early in the 20th century. Unfortunately many of the other records have been lost or buried by successive generations of progress. These records would include, for instance, the earliest Dutch cemeteries on Manhattan Island. One was on the west side of Broadway just north of the present Morris Street; see slide 08832 (taken in 1997) for the approximate location. Cemeteries further up the Hudson River might be helpful if we could find them, if stones were used, and if those stones were still standing. All of this is doubtful. Return to text
2Fort Orange, about 550 feet square and about 200 feet from the Hudson River, was located at the foot of what is today Madison Avenue and is now covered by a highway overpass and ramp for Dunn Memorial Bridge. (See slides 08772, 08780-82,and 08789, all taken in 1997.) The fort housed perhaps a dozen soldiers and had inside it dwellings for twice as many traders. During most of the Dutch years, it was neglected and dilapidated. A new fort, built by the British in 1675, was further up Albany's central hill on what is now State Street; it was located approximately where the state capitol building stands today. Beverwyck took its name from the Dutch trading town at the far end of the interior river route in the Netherlands, so that, in effect, the two towns were opposite ends of one long sea connection. Return to text
3Here we switch to the Dutch spelling of the name, Van der Poel, as it was used up until Abraham moved south. Note the usages that follow, taught to me by a Dutch colleague: in family names with two or more elements, the first prefix is capitalized when no given name is being used (i.e., Van der Poel) but is written lower case when the given name is used (i.e., Gerrit van der Poel). It is also worth noting that in Dutch naming patterns it was customary for the firstborn son to be named after his paternal grandfather and for the second son to be named after his maternal grandfather; daughters were named for the grandmothers, maternal first and then paternal. This pattern can provide important clues in establishing family relationships.
4This name, sometimes spelled de Hoogen, means "the high one" in Dutch.
5The Vanderpool homestead in Newark was later located at the corner of Broad Street and Division Street, where the Continental Hotel stood during the 1880s, but it is not clear whether this is the same location where Wynant Vanderpool lived from the late 1720s onward.
6See slides 09787 and 09689, taken in 1997, for views of the park that now occupies this site. Return to text
7Dutch settlers founded Kingston, first known as Wiltwyck (Wild Woods), high above the Hudson River near the Esopus Creek, in 1652. It was a major Dutch town and also the state capital for a short while. The original Dutch church in Kingston was at the corner of what is now Main Street and Wall Street, just a few feet away from the current church. (See slide 08801, taken in 1997.)
8Some sources state that Catharina was born in Schenectady, New York, but there is no known family connection with that place and I suspect an error. If she was born in Schenectady, she and her family evidently left before a massacre on the night of February 9, 1690, in which some 200 French-led Indians killed or captured about 100 of its residents. This French aggression, based in large part on rivalry over the fur trade, was the first clash in what developed into the conflict known as King William's War.
9Some sources state that the marriage took place in Hurley, Ulster County, New York, the home of the bride's parents, or in Kinderhook in Columbia County, New York, but the records of the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany show that Wynant and Catharina (both described therein as residents of Albany) were married there. How they met is unknown. Was the marriage arranged by their parents? Was Catharina perhaps working (as a housemaid, for instance) in Albany? Did Wynant's travels up and down the Hudson River include stops in Kingston or Hurley, where he met Catharina? There are some questions we simply cannot answer even with the best of records.
10When the church graveyard was later built upon, the bodies of Wynant and Catharina may have been among those removed to a private cemetery opposite 19 Hillside Avenue in Livingston, New Jersey. The grave markers were kept for many years in the personal vault of a descendant named Beach Vanderpool, but their present whereabouts is unknown. Return to text
11The marriage banns had been published on November 17, 1675.
12Information contributed to the LDS suggests dates ranging from 1650 to 1656 for the birth of Johannes de Hooges. One family researcher has argued that he was born between 1652 and 1654. Sources that say he was born in Hurley (then still Nieuw Dorp) or in New Amsterdam do not seem correct to me. Return to text
13This would have been the St. Nicholas Church built within the fort in 1642. In 1692-93 a new Reformed Church was built on what is now Exchange Place; it was destroyed in the city's great fire of December 16, 1835. Religious services on Manhattan Island, dating from 1628, were held in space the Company provided in one of its storehouses on the then-waterfront, now William Street. A very simple church building was built on Pearl Street in 1633. In 1692 and 1693 a new Reformed Church was built on what is now Exchange Place; it was destroyed in the city's great fire of December 16, 1835. Return to text
14The family name may originally have been Pos.
15Possibly Crijnen or Quirijnen. Return to text
16The Dutch encouraged artists to go to Brazil, and one who did was a painter named Frans Post. In light of the rather inbred character of the Dutch colonial apparatus, it is tempting to wonder if Adriaen Post might have been related to him – especially as he had a son named Francoys, whose name is recorded at least once as Frans. It is also worth noting that a brother of the older Frans Post, an architect named Pieter, also seems to have lived in Brazil. They were the sons of Jan Janzoon and Francyntie {Peters} Post, who came from Leyden and Haarlem, respectively. There is no definite link between these Posts and Adriaen, the father of Margaret, but there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest that such a link existed.
17See slide 5306 for a 1991 view of Dutch Island. Return to text
18Bergen had been founded in 1660. Some researchers believe that only Post's son, also named Adriaen, lived in Bergen – not the elder Post. Return to text
19Under Captain Caspar Steyments.
20The prison was established in July 1673 at the home of John Berry. Post was thus among the earliest inhabitants of the Bergen area, the oldest permanent settlement in New Jersey. New Jersey remained largely unpopulated until after the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, but once its settlement began there was a steady influx by groups of Dutch families from all parts of New Netherland – only rarely by settlers directly from Europe. Some of these families, like the Wynant van der Poels, came from as far away as the Albany area. Much of the early settlement of New Jersey proceeded up the Raritan River. Return to text
21Information contributed to the LDS shows Clara's date of death as December 4, 1675, in Cummunipaw, New Jersey, but I think that date may be too late.
22Margaret's sister Maria married into the Bradt family, which we will consider later, but she is not in the Bradt line we are studying here. Some researchers attempt to tie Adriaen Post to a Post family in the Netherlands that stretches back to about 1275, but there is some doubt about the details of this information – although a link to this family at some stage seems possible. Return to text
23The Dutch language of this era employed patronymics that show the father's first or given name. (In the Netherlands but not in North America, the mother's first or given name was also used in the fashion to be described.) A son carried as his middle name his father's name with the addition of sen or szen (often contracted as s or se); a daughter carried as her middle name her father's name with the addition of a je or s (a remnant of the original sdochter meaning "daughter"). These patronymic names are very useful in tracking family lines, of course, and I have included them where they are known.
24All of Eva's names have variant spellings: Eva is often given as Engeltje; Albertse is sometimes rendered Albertson; and Bradt is frequently spelled Bratt. In fact, all of these names that date from the New Netherland period vary significantly, and I have simply chosen certain variations over others. Albert Bradt himself spelled and signed his names variously, and I suspect the others did so as well.
25This 1631 church, called the Oude Lutherse Kerk today, still stands at the corner of the Spui near Konigsplein. It is now part of the university. When I visited Amsterdam in 1991, I saw the exterior of the church but did not know then that it had a connection to my family. (See slides 05101 and 05102.) Return to text
26Information contributed to the LDS gives a date of October 6, 1647, for the wedding, and a de Hooges researcher says that the date was October 1, 1647. Most researchers who study this family do not accept either date. Return to text
27This name, adopted after the English forced the Dutch to assume family names, is properly pronounced Brott, and many descendants spell the name that way or Bratt.
28This burying ground was near the Lutheran church on the west side of South Pearl Street, between Howard Street and Beaver Street. (See slide 08777 and 08824, taken in 1997.) It is possible Annetie was also buried there. Return to text
29This church, named for St. Nicholas, was begun in 1260 and consecrated in 1306. It is the oldest church, and possibly the oldest building, in Amsterdam. The church is located just off Warmoesstraat. This is not the church called the Oude Lutherse Kerk today.
30Assuming that the baptism of Eva on January 9, 1633, occurred soon after her birth, it is possible that she was conceived before the marriage of Albert and Annetie on April 11, 1632, but Annetie would not have been noticeably pregnant on the wedding day – and might not even have known she was pregnant, so this is probably not a reason why the marriage took place in the Reformed Oudekerk instead of the Lutheran church. If there was a considerable delay between Eva's birth and her baptism, however, a visible pregnancy might indeed explain why another church had to be found for Albert and Annetie's marriage. In that case, though, Eva probably would not have been baptized in the Lutheran church. To me, it seems most likely that Annetie was not pregnant when she and Albert were married. Return to text
31Sometimes written Röttmer.
32This is sometimes spelled Geesgen. Return to text
33This alley, named after a family of the same name, still exists. An interesting sidelight is that on April 21, 1632, Geesje and her son (Annetie's brother) appeared at Amsterdam's City Hall in order that the latter could make his declaration of intent to marry. The official before whom they appeared, Dr. Frans Cock, is the central figure in Rembrandt's very famous painting called The Night Watch.
34Sometimes spelled Rensborch. After the death of Geesje, Pieter married Elisabeth d'Honneur. Return to text
35This alley, which has not existed since the beginning of the 19th century, once ran near the Amstelstraat and so was quite near the Schaepensteegje where Annetie lived. Return to text
36This well-known body of water was an inlet of the North Sea that was enclosed by dams in 1932. What remains today is called the IJsselmeer.
37One source gives October 2 as the date.
38Later, when the English forced the Dutch in conquered New Netherland to adopt family names, Storm and his descendants elected to use Van der Zee (meaning "from the sea"), and they are known by this name today. Both my sister and I went to school with members of a Vanderzee family that I recently learned is descended from Albert Bradt's son Storm. The name Storm is still in use in that family. Return to text
39The exact location of the mill can only be approximated. My explorations on foot, using a topographical map, have led me to conclude that it was probably the rocky area beneath the bridges for U.S. 9 and the New York State Thruway, just a short distance upstream from New York Route 32. (See slides 08791-08796, taken in 1997.) Recent discoveries, reported in the Bratt family association's newsletter, have seemed to validate my thinking. Bradt's residence was on the highway between Albany and Bethlehem, and there is a natural, elevated location not far from the mill site that matches this description. The area is known as Kenwood and is at the end of Old Pearl Street. A resident here in 1997 bore the name of Anders, the family name taken by Albert's brother, Arent (who came to New Netherland with him). See the USGS map for Delmar/New York and slide 08797, also taken in 1997. There is also a nearby public park called Normanskill Farm, which is not Bradt's property but took its name from the tributary. Normanskill had its own legend of a maiden, similar to the Lorelei, who lured boys to their death in the pool. As a notable landmark, Normanskill and its falls seem to have been used by American Indian groups as a rendezvous and place for important conferences. In Delaware oral history, it was the site where the Iroquois nation imposed inferior status on the Delaware nation sometime early in the 1600s, though the accuracy of this lore is questioned.Return to text
40The fact that the third partner did not come to New Netherland until 1638 may have contributed to the friction.
41Including the patroon's agent, a man named Jacob Albertsen Planck [Verplanck?], who may have been related to the Abraham Verplanck we will soon meet. Return to text
42Bradt was able to hire at least three assistants: a French carpenter named Labatie during the 1630s, a shoemaker named Gerrit Hendricksz from 1638 to 1641, and a farm servant named Jacob Arentsz from 1639 into the 1640s. His own sons also helped in the sawmills. Return to text
43Bradt bought the house and lot from Hendrick Kip (whose name got attached to Kip's Bay), which makes it possible to locate the property on contemporary maps. He leased the house to Roeloff Jansen, a butcher, and then to Allert Anthony. Bradt's house and lot, which immediately adjoined those of Abraham Verplanck, were located approximately at what is today 2 Broadway. Return to text
44This property seems to have been near Maspeth Kill in what is known as Bushwick, in Brooklyn. Return to text
45Albert claimed immunity from prosecution on the grounds that he was a resident of Rensselaerswyck and not Fort Orange, but the court in Fort Orange did not accept his claim. His buildings within Fort Orange were attached – seized – to enforce payment of the fine he received.
46The Lutherans obtained the property in 1670. The church was on the west side of South Pearl Street between Howard Street and Beaver Street. (See slide 08777, taken in 1997.) The Lutheran church in New York City, on the southwest corner of Rector Street and Broadway, was not built until 1676, and it is unlikely that Bradt (largely retired to the Normanskill by then) ever saw it. Return to text
47One source says the marriage occurred between May 29, 1663, and January 27, 1666. Return to text
48Geertruyt moved in 1676 and died in 1695. One book on New York cites Bradt's divorce in order to illustrate its point that at that time divorce was quite rare in New Amsterdam and then New York. Return to text
49This was on the west side of North Pearl Street, about halfway between Maiden Lane and Steuben Street, about where Pine Street was later driven through this block. (See slide 11638, taken in 2005.)
50This is now at the corner of Broadway and Clinton Street. (See slide 08823, taken in 1997.) Return to text
51On the other hand, in 1677 he was named as a guardian in a will, so someone seems to have regarded him as able and trustworthy. Albert's son was no paragon either, having on at least one occasion caused enough commotion on a Sunday morning in 1677 to have attracted the sheriff – after which he insulted the sheriff. Uncivil behavior is apparently in the Bradt genes. Return to text
52See my files for a copy of the contract between the captain and the patroon for the transport of Anthony de Hooges.
53See the copy in my files. Return to text
54He lived with a West India Company official named Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, probably on the street called The Strand (now Pearl Street) – just a few steps from where Abraham Verplanck lived. (See slide 08841, taken in 1997, for the approximate area.) Return to text
55The booklet describing the New Netherland Project includes a facsimile of a document written in Anthony's hand.
56When van Rensselaer's agent and his new bride lost their house to fire, de Hooges invited the couple to stay with him. Unfortunately the two men soon argued, and after a month de Hooges threw them out. In March 1647, de Hooges described in detail the appearance of a white whale in the Hudson River not far from Albany. His account possibly influenced Herman Melville, a native of Albany, in the writing of Moby Dick. In 2002 composer David Dramm set some of de Hooges's words to music in The Beverwyck Overture. Return to text
57One source states that Anthony de Hooges was a widower with several children when he married Eva. I have seen no evidence to substantiate this statement, and the story related in this paragraph would seem to show otherwise.
58The nickname may be a corruption of the Dutch word for promontory. (See slide 08771, taken in 1997.) Washington Irving, in his Knickerbocker history of New York, has a different explanation for the origin of the name, but Irving made up a good deal of his so-called "history." Early explorers called the Hudson River "St. Anthony's" River, which seems to indicate that the connection with de Hooges is only a myth. Return to text
59The Rutten Kill and its prominent ravine ran between State Street and North Street in present-day Albany; it was filled in many years later. See slide 11628 (taken in 2005) for the location of de Hooges's house.
60We deduce Anthony's date of death from the fact that his employer stopped his salary on June 11. Return to text
61This location is not the same as the present-day town called Esopus, which is further south.
62The two locations are only a block apart, so the statement that her residence was at Beaver Street and Broadway may stem from an erroneous reading of a map by someone. Return to text
63The Stockade District is one of Kingston's tourist attractions today. Swartwout's property is said to have been located south of that of Louis Du Bios [probably Bois] and north of that of Thomas Harmansen. Return to text
64Some sources give the date as June 10. Return to text
65See the USGS maps for Saugerties/New York and Kingston West/New York for Esopus Creek, Hurley, and the old section of Kingston. The farmland the Swartwouts cultivated is still being cultivated three and one-half centuries later. See slides 08798-08800 for views of Hurley in 1997. Swartwout's property was located west of Evert Pell's and east of the minister's lot.
66The marriage date of 1675 may provide a clue as to Johannes's exact year of birth: the customary age for marriage was 21 years old for a male and 18 years old for a female; an unmarried male reached his majority at 25 years of age, and a single woman reached her majority at 18 years of age. This argues for Johannes being born closer to 1655 than to 1650, I think. Return to text
67Swartwout married again after Eva died; his second marriage was to Francyntse Andries, widow of Abraham Lubertson, on November 22, 1691. He died at Machackemeck, New York (now Port Jervis) between March 30, 1714, when he wrote his will, and May 14, 1715 – probably on March 24, 1715; he is buried in Hurley. The Swartwout family remained prominent in New York, at least until one Samuel Swartwout fled to Great Britain in 1818 with a million dollars or so he had stolen from Federal customs revenues collected in New York City. Roelofs Swartwout had been born in Amsterdam on June 1, 1634, but his family was an old Frisian one from the Groningen area. Return to text
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